Various respiration detecting and/or monitoring devices have been heretofore suggested and/or utilized in a variety of settings, and have included devices utilizing impedance plethysmography, inductance plethysmography, aural monitoring, EMG or EKG monitoring, strain gauges or the like. These devices all have different limitations, including undue complexity for some uses, inability to monitor, or distinguish between, different types of respiratory and/or unrelated events such as upper airway obstructions, breath holding, sighing, yawning and artifact both of a mechanical and electromagnetic nature.
In particular, a number of respiration detectors based on pneumatic principals have been heretofore suggested and/or utilized (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,602,643, 4,813,428 and 5,022,402), such detectors also suffering from some of the same limitations, particularly those related to distinguishing between events sensed. Further improvement could thus still be utilized.